A MUSEUM PIECE : Stotz, 79, Founded Little League, Then Found He Could Do Without It When It Became Big Business

Carl (Tuck) Stotz, who created Little League baseball here 50 years ago, lives two miles from the Little League World Series Stadium in this north-central Pennsylvania town.

But he isn’t attending any of the 43rd annual Little League World Series games this week. He never goes. He boycotts the championship series every year.

“If I were running Little League, I would eliminate the World Series,” said Stotz, 79. “It takes away from the sport what Little League is all about, a chance to play neighborhood baseball. The World Series isn’t in keeping with the game. It’s too unnatural.”

The 5-foot 8-inch, 112-pound founder of Little League ball, now played by more than 2.5 million youngsters in 34 nations--it’s the world’s largest organized youth sports program--believes Little League has far out grown his original intent.

Stotz is honored in the Founders Room of the 7-year-old, $2.5-million Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum next to the World Series Stadium.

It is the only sports museum dedicated to a kids’ game. Among exhibits are photographs of Stotz at the first Little League game, pictures of Stotz with Ford Frick, with Connie Mack and other baseball greats.

Yet, Stotz has never set foot in the museum.

“No sir, I’ve never been in the museum and I never intend to go there,” he said. “A lot of things happened to Little League that do not agree with my philosophy of the game.”

A statue of three boys in baseball uniforms, each with an upraised glove, as if to catch a ball, was dedicated two months ago at the site of the first Little League game.

“I was invited to the dedication but I did not accept the invitation,” Stotz said “But I went anyway because 14 of the boys, now men in their late 50s and early 60s, who played Little League that first year were there and I wanted to be with them.”

Stotz, a lifelong resident of Williamsport, was a 28-year-old oil company clerk in the summer of 1938 when he played catch with his nephews, Major and Jimmy Gehron.

“We played, then we sat around talking baseball,” he said. “I played baseball when I was their age. I loved the game. I told them I thought it would be great if they could play on a regular team with uniforms, a new ball for every game, bats they could really swing.”

A week later, he told his nephews to round up some of their friends to play scrub ball at a nearby park.

“I piled 10 kids in my 1934 Plymouth,” he recalled. “We took newspapers and folded them to represent bases. We did this several times that summer.”

Stotz said that over the winter, he made plans for a Little League in Williamsport. He was married, had two daughters, but no sons. He recruited two of his friends, George and Bert Bebble to manage teams. The league was formed with three teams sponsored by local merchants.

On June 6, 1939, the first Little League game was played by boys 8 to 12 on teams sponsored by Lycoming Dairy and Lundy Lumber at a park in Williamsport.

“Max Miller was my pitcher on the Lycoming Dairy team,” Stotz mused. “I told him not to walk anybody, to throw strikes and make them hit. Well, he threw strikes and in the first inning they got seven runs. The second inning they knocked eight more runs . . . “

A scoreboard in the Little League Museum recalls that game: LYCOMING DAIRY 1 0 0 3 3 1--TOTAL 8; LUNDY LUMBER 7 8 4 2 2 X--TOTAL 23. The next year four teams made up the Williamsport Little League. In 1946, there were 12 Little Leagues, all in Pennsylvania.

By 1950, the year California became part of the program, there were 376 Little Leagues with 150,000 boys in 22 states. By 1955 there were Little Leagues in 48 states.

Little League was incorporated in 1948 and Stotz was named commissioner. One of his rules was that Little League baseball never be played on Sunday. That has changed.

Many other changes occurred, as well. In 1955, Stotz, unhappy with the way things were going, removed himself from the national organization.

But he has stayed active with his original Williamsport four-team Little League, an independent group, no longer affiliated with the international program.

The history of Little League, from its inception by Carl Stotz to the present, is vividly recalled with memorabilia, uniforms, equipment, special exhibits, graphics, photographs, films and video clips in the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum.

The museum is on the 42-acre Little League complex here. It includes the Little League international headquarters building, World Series Stadium, five other baseball diamonds and housing for World Series teams. McGovern was president of Little League from 1952 until his death in 1983.

Dr. Creighton J. Hale is the current president and chief executive officer. Cynthia Stearns, 30, who was marketing manager for the Harlem Globetrotters in Los Angeles, has been director of the Little League Museum since January, 1988.

Museum visitors step into a re-creation of the 1982 World Series game between Kirkland, Wash., and Taiwan’s Pu-Tzu Town team, which Kirkland won. A blowup of a color photo of the grandstands filled with the World Series crowd is wrapped around two walls.

Video clips from all 42 previous Little League World Series are available for viewing. There’s a huge map tracing Little League’s phenomenal growth. Little Leaguers and anyone else who wish to try out their skills may do so in pitching and batting cages.

The museum’s collections are updated and enlarged each year with new memorabilia and artifacts, with films and photographs of the latest World Series play and major new developments in the game.

Victoria Brucker of San Pedro, 12-year-old home run hitter and first baseman of the Eastview Little League team, is a shoo-in for a special exhibit in the museum, since she became the first American girl ever to play in the Little League World Series this week. She also became the first girl to get a hit.

Photographs of all the world champion teams since 1947 are displayed. First foreign team to win the World Series was Monterrey, Mexico, in 1957. That team repeated in 1958. Teams from Taiwan have won the title 13 times, teams from Japan three times and teams from Korea twice.

When President Bush visited Poland earlier this year, he threw out the first pitch for the first Little League game ever played in that country and presented a certificate of charter to the first four Little League teams there. The Soviet Union is expected to launch a Little League program soon.

Pennsylvania teams have won more world championships than any other state, four times. California, New Jersey and Connecticut teams have won three times. Teams from New York and Texas have won twice and Alabama, New Mexico, Michigan, Washington and Georgia have each won once.

Two thirds to 75% of the major league players today are Little League graduates. And the most popular exhibits in the museum are perhaps those featuring photographs and memorabilia from major league players of their Little League years.

Photographs showing Orel Hershiser, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Carl Yastrzemski, Carney Lansford, Boog Powell, Gary Carter, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan and many other major leaguers as youngsters in their Little League uniforms are here.

So, too, are uniforms, caps, gloves, jackets, shoes and socks major leaguers wore when they were 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 year-old Little Leaguers.

There’s Seaver when he played in the Spartan Little League in Fresno; Carter, in the West Fullerton Little League; Palmer in the Beverly Hills Little League; Lansford in the Briarwood Little League in Santa Clara.

Seaver, now on the board of directors of the museum, said last year when he was became the first person enshrined in the museum’s Hall of Excellence: “Of all the accolades and honors I’ve received throughout my baseball career, two of which I’m most proud are my University of Southern California baseball jersey hanging in the Smithsonian and my Little League all-star hat on display in the Little League Museum.”

Lansford, Powell, Rick Wise and Jim Barbieri have all played in both the Little League and major league World Series. This year, Carl Yastrzemski became the first former Little Leaguer inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Nolan Ryan recalled his playing days with the Alvin (Tex.) Little League: “Little League was a great period in my life. We never won a championship but we tried real hard. I guess that’s what Little League is all about--trying.”

One exhibit at the museum is devoted to the parents of major league baseball players who were actively involved in their sons’ Little League career. Award winners include the parents of Mike Schmidt, Steve Garvey, Keith Hernandez, Palmer, Carter, Dale Murphy, Ryan and Hershiser.

On July 7, President Bush stood before 5,000 on the South Lawn of the White House and paid tribute to the golden anniversary of Little League baseball.

“I coached my four sons in Little League and Barbara was the team scorekeeper and organized the car pool,” he said. “We had 1,000 kids in our league and I think Barbara drove them all home.”

Parents of Little Leaguers from presidents through all walks of life have dedicated their time and energy to the success of Little League baseball, founded 50 years ago by Stotz.